A Close Run Thing (42 page)

The crack was deafening, and a curtain of powder-smoke billowed before him. Death or deliverance awaited its clearing, yet he did not doubt his aim, and the curtain parted to reveal his skill – the lancer lying
stone
dead, his chest a frothing crimson. Hervey now pulled himself upright. The freeing of the holster allowed him the extra reach to cut through the girth straps and, with the saddle loose, there was enough play for him to struggle from under Nero’s dead weight at last. He sprang up, half-surprised that his leg, numbed after its constraint, was in one piece, for he had seen many a leg shattered in lesser falls. The lancer’s horse stood obligingly still by its erstwhile rider. He seized the reins and leaped into the saddle despite the pain now displacing the numbness. Only then did he see Serjeant Armstrong galloping back down the hill towards him.

‘Oh, thank Christ, Mr ’Ervey! I thought you were done for! Come on, quick, sir – the regiment’s gone back, there’re lancers everywhere!’

‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ said Hervey with a grimace as he spurred after him.

The French horse was sluggish, and he had to use the flat of his sword to move him apace through the mud, knee-deep in places.

‘How did we fare?’ he called to Armstrong.

‘We saw ’em off, sir,’ he shouted back, ‘but, Jesus, that lance is a fearsome thing. We need that bloody weapon ourselves. Some officers went down. I saw Captain Elmsall and Captain Roberts fall, an’ I think they’re dead.’

Lankester dolefully confirmed as much when Hervey and Armstrong reached the depleted ranks of the Sixth
back
on the ridge above La Haye. ‘Hervey, I am doubly relieved at seeing you,’ he called as they galloped up and saluted. ‘There is but Nall left of the troop leaders, and no more than a half-dozen other officers.’

‘What of Cheney, sir?’ asked Hervey in dismay, ‘and Laming?’

‘Laming is right enough, but I think he will lose an arm. Cheney was set about by lancers while he was trying to rally Second Troop. Canning brought First out – with Strange’s help; the “boots” did well!’

Hervey would have heard the entire muster roll, but Bonaparte’s intrigue was the more pressing, and instead he rattled off his intelligence.

Lankester listened intently and, even with an incomplete knowledge of Wellington’s design for battle, comprehended its significance at once: ‘Very well; go immediately to Lord Uxbridge – if he is still with us, that is, for he was at the head of the heavies and in the thick of things when we reached the Greys.’

Uxbridge had returned to the place whence he had led the heavies in the fateful charge against d’Erlon’s columns. Behind the crest of the ridge, astride the
chaussée
, he held, as it were, the tollgate to the Brussels road. The French infantry had paid a terrible price attempting to force that gate, and would do so once more, but there was now a change in the pace of the battle – if not quite a lull, then a perceptible slackening. Yet despite his earlier exertions the Earl of
Uxbridge
looked just as he did at a field day, his pelisse off the shoulder in true hussar fashion, his dolman immaculate, his shako set square. Hervey was discomfited by his own mud-spattered appearance, thankful at least that he had not lost his own shako. Uxbridge seemed not to care in the slightest. ‘Well done, Mr Hervey,’ he replied on hearing his report. ‘I am only gratified that your French was sufficient – and that you had some notion of the implication of such a ruse. But we must waste no time trying to find the duke. Marshal Blücher’s liaison officer – Baron Müffling (you will remember him, I think, from our review last month) – has this hour set out to discover what is happening with our gallant allies. Ride after him; take the Wavre road. Inform him that—No,
go
with him in person to the Prussians! I myself shall tell the duke.’

Hervey thrilled at the commission. He was no mere galloper but an emissary – and from the duke himself to the dauntless Prince Blücher. He gathered his reins as calmly as he could, saluted and then sped back to the Sixth. Gone was the mare’s sluggishness, and instead she bucked for the best part of a hundred yards while he tried painfully to apply his leg to pick her up. How in God’s name did the French school their horses? he wondered.

‘Next time, Mr ’Ervey, sir, I’m gooin’ with yer,’ called Johnson as Hervey reached the regiment; ‘It’s not right gooin’ off in a charge an’ leavin’ me. Where’s Nero?’

‘Johnson, it’s as well that you
did
stay here or you might now be lying down there with Nero, and a lance in your back,’ he replied curtly. ‘Look, take this French trollop; I will have Jessye from you now. Where is Serjeant Armstrong?’

‘Here, sir!’ came the confident reply from behind.

Hervey turned and saw his broad smile – and his sword-arm in a sling. ‘I had not appreciated that you were bloodied, Serjeant Armstrong,’ he exclaimed. ‘Is Serjeant Strange fit?’

‘Ay, sir. But what do you want of him?’ asked Armstrong suspiciously.

‘I have a dispatch for the Prussians and need of an escort.’

‘This arm will not fail you,’ Armstrong declared, pulling it from the sling.

‘No, I cannot risk it. Fetch Serjeant Strange, if you will,’ replied Hervey sharply, bringing a welter of protests from his covering-serjeant, which were only silenced in the bluntest of terms. Johnson attempted likewise to protest, and he, too, was silenced only with difficulty. When Strange came up, Hervey explained their assignment and then instructed Armstrong to tell Lankester of it, receiving a surly salute in reply as he and Strange took off down the ridge-road after the baron, Jessye bucking as violently as had the French mare.

Half a mile beyond the flank picket of Vivian’s brigade they saw at last General Müffling and his escort, the
same
distance again and about to enter the Forêt d’Ohain. Hervey quickened the pace still more, though Strange’s horse was beginning to tire, and it seemed that they might close the distance before the Prussians were too deep into the forest. But he had gambled on speed alone to keep them safe, and the gamble now looked like failing; for suddenly, as if from nowhere, there came a check to their progress – perhaps even an end. Three or four hundred yards away, and trotting towards them, red tunics and tall
chapkas
vivid against the background of green, was a lancer patrol. Their red-and-white lance-pennants fluttered a full fifteen feet from the ground, and Hervey might have admired them had they not been standing between him and his mission. He counted a dozen (unpromising odds, to say the least) and he knew he had but two options. He might run back to the security of the allied line: it scarcely
was
an option, though, for Strange’s horse would soon be outpaced. He tried instead to judge the angle between them and the French, and the point where they might gain the cover of the forest, but it was so acute that a gallop in that direction offered little chance of success, either. Yet he must make a decision.

Strange had already made it: ‘Go on, sir; I’ll stop them!’

He had never before heard such urgency in Strange’s voice.
Stop
them: Strange said ‘stop’, not delay. Both knew what that meant, for stopping could only be at one price.

‘
Go on
, sir!’

Hervey unclipped the carbine from his crossbelt and thrust it and the cartridge-pouch at Strange. ‘Here, you know the mechanism well enough.’

That
he did, for the carbine had been the talk of the Sixth in Ireland, and he had fired it. He took them without a word but reached inside his tunic and pulled out what looked like a leather tobacco-pouch, though Hervey knew he did not smoke. ‘Here, sir, take this for later,
and go on, now
!’ he urged, spurring his tired gelding towards the patrol. ‘And good luck, Mr Hervey,’ he called over his shoulder.

‘Good luck to you, too, Serjeant Strange!’ said Hervey beneath his breath as he, too, spurred into a gallop. There was no show of sentiment: the formality was exaggerated even. Hervey knew he would have done the same himself had their circumstances been reversed, and that Strange was only doing his duty as countless other serjeants were doing at that moment. But it made it no less gallant. He reckoned Strange would be able to get off four or five shots before the French closed with him, but this was no guarantee that the
lanciers
would be dissuaded from pursuit, for the patrol (if it knew what it were about) ought to divide – one group to deal with Strange, the other to intercept
him
. But he guessed they would not, for he had never thought much of their patrolling. Knee-to-knee in the charge,
yes
, but not this sort of work. And pride would surely get the better of them when the first lancer was hit.

He gambled well. Even against the continuous
thunder
of gunfire a mile away he heard Strange’s first shot, then after a few seconds another, then another and another – then nothing. With fifty yards to go to the trees he looked back. The French had made straight for Strange, and there was an evenly spaced line of four dead or dying lancers. Each shot, which Strange fired mounted, had told, and now the best marksman in the regiment was parrying a lance with his sabre. Hervey looked away for an instant to fix his opening into the forest. When he turned again Strange was no longer visible, overwhelmed by the French. ‘
Stop
them’, indeed: Strange had known precisely the price he would pay.

The forest swaddled him in leafy silence as he slowed to a jog-trot, then a walk, for Jessye was blowing hard. First Edmonds, now Strange – he wondered who might live to recount this battle. His head hurt sorely. The trees were a blur, and he was all but overcome by the urge to lie down, dropping the reins and letting Jessye take him along the rutted track, oblivious now to his surroundings.

A pistol exploded. He felt the ball kiss his cheek. Bark splinters flew as it struck the tree behind, magpies and jays scattering in noisy flight, making Jessye shy.

‘Votre épée, monsieur! Rendez votre épée!’ shouted the
chasseur à cheval
.

Hervey touched the graze, curious that there was no pain – nor then any blood on his fingers. His gut
tightened
, his mind raced, the plume of the
chasseur
’s busby changed from a blur to sharp detail, and he saw that neither flight nor resistance was prudent in the face of two cavalry pistols not ten yards ahead.

‘Je dis encore, monsieur: rendez votre épée.’ But the voice somehow lacked assurance (though the escorts – five, six, or even more – looked solid enough).

‘Eh bien, lieutenant,’ replied Hervey, measured, thoughtful; ‘qu’est ce que vous faites ici?’

The lieutenant looked surprised. It was for
him
to ask that question, he stammered. What was an Englishman doing, speaking this way?

Hervey felt himself trembling uncontrollably, yet he did not know if he were. His voice almost broke as he now grasped his chance: ‘Alors, messieurs: je ne suis pas Anglais. Je suis l’agent de l’empereur.’

The lieutenant looked anguished. ‘C’est pas possible—’

But Hervey would not let him finish, instead piling on his doubts. He reached into a pocket (the escorts gestured with their pistols) and took out the de Chantonnay ring. ‘See this: it is the seal of the de Chantonnays –
my
seal. No Frenchman can fail to recognize it!’

The lieutenant rode up closer and peered at it. ‘Do you not have papers of authorization, monsieur?’ he asked sceptically.

‘What? To be found by the English or the Prussians! Do you take me for a fool?’ rasped Hervey in his most imperious French. ‘I have papers well enough, but you
will
find them only with the emperor’s staff. Now, if you please, I have business to be about.’

The lieutenant shifted uneasily. ‘What business is this, monsieur?’

‘I am not about to disclose the emperor’s business to a lieutenant!’ gasped Hervey, ‘even to a lieutenant of
chasseurs
!’

‘Then, I am afraid, monsieur, that you must accompany us so that we may verify your identity,’ said the lieutenant.

Hervey was now fired by the deception. ‘Imbecile!’ he shouted. ‘What in the name of France do you think we are about this day? You have seen my seal, have you not? You recognize it surely?’

‘Yes, of course, monsieur, but—’

‘Then, let me put to you this for your consideration, which only those in the emperor’s confidence must know. The Prussians – they are expected hourly upon this flank, are they not? Mais Prussiens, monsieur? Jamais! They are Grouchy’s men, no?
Voilà Grouchy!
n’est-ce pas?’

The lieutenant was at a loss … and then profoundly relieved. ‘Oui, c’est ça;
voilà Grouchy!
Truly, monsieur, that is so. A thousand pardons for delaying you: I was only doing my duty, you understand. May I provide an escort for you?’

‘Indeed you may not!’ thundered Hervey. ‘You will fly from here this instant and leave me to dupe the Prussians. Away, at once!’

* * *

The thrill of so outrageous a bluff turned rapidly to cold dread as he pondered the consequences had he failed – shot out of hand as a spy. Sister Maria had said, ‘You could pass for a Frenchman,’ and he had. How he wished she might know of the providence of that ring. He pushed it deep into a pocket as Jessye extended her trot. The forest was cool, soothing – and silent still, the thunder of cannon fire to the south no more here than a rumble. He began to doze in the saddle again …

‘Halt!’ came the command, unseen.

He pulled up at once and looked around. He could see nothing.

‘Wer ist das? Wohin gehen Sie?’

But before he could make any reply there came another voice: ‘Nein, verflucht! Es ist ein Engländer!’

He did not hesitate a second time. ‘Herr General!’ he called, the Prussian’s vast bulk unmistakable in any light.

Half a dozen mounted figures emerged from the trees. Two of the general’s cavalry escorts kept their pistols trained on him as he rode straight for Müffling and launched into his dispatch with a fluency that took them aback.